The Heart in Hiding
by K. Elisabeth
Summary: Where exactly did Max send Brennan to escape Pelant? Or rather... to whom? Post-finale fic, and also in some ways a sequel to my story "The Family in the Tree." If you remember the story but you've forgotten most of what it's about, fear not, I will do some tasteful recaps. If you've never read it, I'm going to try to write in such a way that you get the most important basics.
1. The World to Unwind

**A/N:** Sooo I know I said I was taking a hiatus from writing fic so that I could write my own original work. And I did! But then I got stuck. I've had terrible writer's block for over 2 months now, and I can't seem to make any headway on my own novel. So I thought, what better way to jog my creative juices than to work on something else? And then I inevitably ended up back here again. Funny how it works like that.

I'm sure you don't actually care about my life story, though. You just want to read fic. So here's the deal. If you remember Brennan's family from my story _The Family in the Tree_, then you will be right on board with this. If you never read that story... then this is going to make no sense to you whatsoever. (**EDIT: See below.**) If you read it but you're thinking, "That was like 3 years ago, I don't remember anything from that story!", well, fear not. I plan on turning the next chapter into a carefully written recap and re-introduction to the beloved characters who you may not remember entirely from many years ago.

And if nobody wants to read this, well, at least I can entertain myself for a while, right? Because those characters didn't go away when I wrote the last chapter. No, for me, they live. They always live, somewhere inside of me. They are always there. One of them in particular. I am sure you know who I am talking about, if you remember her... and if you do, you're in for a treat. :) Okay, I'm done rambling. Enjoy, and please review and let me know what you think!

**A/N EDIT: **I have decided to publish a family tree in Chapter 2. That way even those of you who have not read the story can still follow along and understand what's going on. I don't want to alienate people who may want to read the story simply because they have not read my previous story, so I am going to do the best I can to rehash the most important details of the previous story (mainly the characters) without seeming boring and redundant to those who have already read it before. With that said, enjoy!

* * *

_There's an ocean of reason that I cannot explain_  
_There's the weight of the world like a ball and a chain_  
_There's a black hole inside that I've filled up with stones_  
_Got a long way to get before I get back home..._

_- A Long Way to Get, Bob Schneider_

* * *

_Safe. Safe. _She heard her father's words repeatedly in her head, but only one of them rang out to her, like a death knell. Safe. Her eyes flicked to the rear-view mirror, taking in the image of a smaller version of herself sleeping soundly in the back seat. An arrangement of mirrors allowed her to see the child's worriless face as she dreamed. Well, Brennan wasn't entirely sure if babies dreamed, but she imagined it was possible. Anything seemed possible, given the circumstances.

Christine smiled in her sleep, and Brennan felt a fire rip through her chest—whether it was a blaze of love, passion, or fear, she did not know. Perhaps all of the above. Christine looked just like Booth when she smiled. It was incredible, the way genetics worked. One moment she could look like a replica of Brennan's baby pictures, but the next, she was wearing the same ask-forgiveness-not-permission grin that her father had perfected over the years.

_Shit-eating_ was how her own father had described it once, during the most recent holiday season, while arguing over who would carve the turkey. Brennan had watched them bemusedly as they went after one another, only crinkling her forehead in confusion when her father told Booth, _You better wipe that shit-eating grin off your face before I do it for you._ She didn't understand the phrase, but then again, she didn't understand a lot of things. She was beginning to realize that more and more as time went on, particularly with Christine. She used to think she knew everything. Now, she realized, she knew almost nothing.

The baby whined in her sleep, and Brennan reached back, wrenching her shoulder up over her own seat and inching her fingers around the edge of the car seat until she felt the warm, soft skin of her daughter's cheek. She ran her fingers along the babe's soft, squishy face, and felt the child's hot breath against her hand, turning in to her mother's touch. Brennan smiled despite herself.

"Shhh, it's okay," she comforted, maintaining both eyes on the road and pushing forward, despite wanting very badly to pull over and hold Christine in her arms for a while. She found herself overcome with that urge even more frequently than usual lately. "We'll be there soon."

It wasn't a lie. They had been on the road for almost eleven hours; they were only another hour or two away from their destination. Her father had given her few instructions, but one of them was to take frequent breaks as she felt safe to. That one she had blown off completely. She stopped for gas shortly before the light came on, but other than that, they were constantly on the move. She found herself switching between the interstate and abandoned country roads, afraid that if she stayed on one route for too long someone would recognize her. Not that anyone had a clue where she was going, aside from her father. How could they? She had only known of this place herself a few years ago, and it wasn't something she had shared widely. Why, she never truly understood. Now, though, it made perfect sense. Some things were best kept a secret—not because you are ashamed of them, but because you treasure them too much. Because you need to keep them away from the prying eyes of the world. Because you yourself might need that protection one day, and who better to provide it?

Not that she had intentionally been silent on the issue, but it had just never come up in conversation. Few people ask about your extended family, and even fewer genuinely listen. Now she felt that fact to be fortuitous more than anything. Brennan looked down at the old green numbers on the clock—3:57 AM. Her eyes burned but she didn't dare close them. The last thing she needed to do was nod off in the middle of the night on the interstate. She thought about the possibility; that she could die trying to escape Pelant. Wouldn't it be ironic, to run her car off the road and die in an accident, while trying to evade a very intentional death? She almost laughed. She really was exhausted, if she could find humor in that.

Brennan rehashed the basic facts in her head again, which she had done so many times over the past twelve hours that she had lost track. Somehow Pelant had managed to frame her for Dr. Ethan Sawyer's murder. She flinched inwardly. He wasn't just Dr. Sawyer, but her friend, Ethan. Schizophrenic or not, he was still dear to her, as a fellow academic and a human being. She could never hurt him… but the evidence was mounted heavily against her. Falsified video footage of her leaving the mental hospital, the money wired to Caroline's bank account, a plant that she had requested from Hodgins shortly before Ethan's death, and to top it all off, a match for Ethan's hair found in the trunk of Brennan's car. Her team was brilliant, but even they had yet to find a way to save her from the evidence, however falsified it might be. As it was, there was little way out of it.

Brennan kept pushing forward, turning all of the air vents towards her face and putting the cold air on blast. She needed something to help her stay awake after having driven straight through the night. At this rate, she would arrive just in time to see the sun come up. She couldn't remember the last time she saw the sun rise from this end of it. Around her, the scenery was changing quickly. The last of the Georgia hills were gone, replaced with the sparse, flat pine scrub that she'd become familiar with. She couldn't feel it yet, but she knew the early summer heat would feel like a wet towel in the face the moment she opened the door. Less than half an hour ago they had passed the white stucco "Welcome to Florida!" sign on the edge of the highway. She had no GPS or phone, and was going only off of her father's hand-written directions, but after several holidays of back and forth she had come to learn that crossing the state line meant less than two hours to her destination.

She looked up at the moon, hanging bright and low, and sighed. Once, on one of his you-let-me dates, Booth had taken her out to a field outside of the city, where the stars were not absconded by the city glow. They spent the night polishing off two bottles of wine and picking out constellations, until they were both so drunk they couldn't have even spelled the word 'constellation.' They ended up sleeping in the SUV until they sobered up, and Booth's back wasn't right for weeks afterwards.

But that night, somewhere between tipsy and drunk, Booth had looked up at the sliver of moon that remained just before the new moon, stared at it for a moment, and then turned to Brennan with that ask-forgiveness-eat-shit smile of his. She quirked her brows at him, feeling more than a little flushed.

"What?" she asked.

"You know something?" he said.

"I already asked what," she said, a little bubblier than she usually would have.

"Well," he said, trying to scoot up on the hood of the car but having a hard time finding his balance. "I was just thinking, with the moon, it's like, no matter where you are, everyone sees the same moon. If I'm here, and you're there, or you're here, and I'm there, or we're there and they're…"

"Booth," Brennan said, half-chiding, half-laughing, realizing that he was far more drunk than she was. She made a hand motion that suggested he should hurry up and get on with his point, with the hand that wasn't holding half a bottle of red wine.

"What I mean," he continued after he cleared his throat, "is that no matter where we are, when we look up at the moon, we're always together. We're always doing the same thing, looking at the same thing. It's like, the original Skype." They had burst into raucous laughter and drank more, and forgot all about the moon.

Until that moment, anyway, when she saw the nearly full moon, missing only a sliver off the edge of it. A near-perfect circle. The night they had sat beneath what was barely left of it, she'd thought his moon comment was the most trite, overwrought cliché she'd ever heard, although she didn't have the heart or mental presence to say so. But that line, or something like it, had made a cameo appearance in practically every love story written since Ruth and Naomi. The idea of two people sharing one moment by both looking up at the same moon… well, it barely felt any more novel or poignant than a box of Sno-Caps, didn't it?

_Wherever you go I will go,_ Brennan heard, somewhere in the softness of the night, a haggard whisper coming down the years and settling like a dove to nest in the back of her mind. _And wherever you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. _

It was from the Book of Ruth, read by her father to her mother at their wedding. Brennan knew this only from stories, but she had seen the worn photographs of her father, holding the leather-bound book in his hands, reciting with wet eyes as he looked up to her mother. Her mother was crying visibly, but smiling, and something else. Something in her that would be happy to go where he went, to make his people her people, and to die where he died. How nearly that became true.

Brennan turned off the interstate, and then, seemingly moments later, off the paved county road onto a dry, dusty swath of limestone. It seemed to emanate a light all its own in the inpenetrable Florida night, reflecting the moonlight as if to tell her, this is the way. She followed it to a well-known turn, and, with her brights on, followed a narrow dirt road down to the clearing at the end. Dogs barked, and the baby awoke. She began to squall, and Brennan cooed over the sound of the animals. She came to a slow stop outside the slanted blue concrete house, river shimmering in the distance.

Brennan barely cut off the engine before she saw a light flick on in the kitchen, door opening a second later out onto the screened porch. A slight figure stepped out into the light wrapped in a hoodie, barely more than a shadow before she entered the orange glow of the outdoor floodlights. Her dark, wavy hair and olive-toned complexion was barely distinguishable from the very last touches of blackness before the dawn. Any moment the world around them would begin to lighten, turning a hazy navy, then grey, then brighten rapidly into many blues that would peak in a brilliant splash of pink and tangerine across the sky overhead. Finally, the light.

_Your people will be my people._

"Sarah Leigh," Brennan breathed, feeling suddenly as if she had been holding her breath for the entire twelve hour car ride. She threw open the door to her car and stepped out, and in an instant was wrapped up in her cousin's arms. The younger woman finally pulled away, just far enough to keep her arms around Brennan's neck while scrutinizing her face. Brennan could see that Sarah Leigh's eyes were bloodshot, and her voice was thick when she finally spoke.

"Damn it, Temperance," she said, half chuckling, half crying. "What've y'all done got yourselves into this time?"


	2. Note: A Family Tree Guide

I don't usually do this (by which I mean _I've never done this before_), but because it's been so long since I wrote _The Family in the Tree_ and because the family dynamic was confusing even then, I am going to dedicate a "chapter" solely to family relations. I want people to enjoy this story, and I also want them to understand it, and I think those two go hand in hand.

This way if you've forgotten something (or if you could never keep it straight in the first place) now you will have something to jog your memory. And if you never read the original at all, then now you have something to go off of! Though I will recommend that you read the original... I might be biased, but I think it's fairly enjoyable. :)

So, without further ado... the bold individuals/couples are Ruth (Brennan's mom) and her sisters. Partners or spouses are listed parenthetically next to the relative of Brennan's. Their children are enumerated beneath.

* * *

**Ruth Donnelly Keenan (dead) and Max Keenan:**

- Temperance Brennan (Seeley J. Booth)  
+ Christine Angela Booth  
+ Parker Booth

- Russ Brennan (Amy Hollister)  
+ Emma Hollister  
+ Hayley Hollister

**Lydia Donnelly Reid ****and Frank Reid (dead):**

- Molly Reid Holby (Eric Holby)  
+ Eleanor Holby  
+ Brandon Holby

- Darren Reid

**Esther Donnelly Rainer and Gene Rainer (div.):**

- Mike Rainer (Lisa Rainer, div.)  
+ Magnolia "Maggie" Anne Rainer  
+ Daniel "Danny" Rainer

- John Rainer

- Charlene Rainer Anderson (Sean Anderson, dead)  
+ Maya Anderson  
+ Bethany Armstrong (adopted niece)

- Abigail "Abby" Rainer Armstrong (dead) (Robert Armstrong, dead)  
+ Laura Armstrong (dead)  
+ Bethany Armstrong (see above)

**Judy Donnelly**

- Sarah Leigh Donnelly

* * *

**Most important points to understand from _The Family in the Tree_:**

Booth and Brennan travel to solve a murder in the middle of nowhere, Florida. They find out that the family murdered is actually part of Brennan's very large extended family on her mother's side (which you see above). Brennan cultivates a relationship with the family she never knew, all while they work to solve the murder of her cousins. I won't reveal any more than that, in case you want to go read the story for yourself! But that is the most important thing for you to know.

* * *

And now you know! This came straight out of my personal notes that I kept while I was writing the original story. I hope you find it useful in the coming chapters! If you haven't already read the previous chapter, or if you have but were confused, maybe go back and take a little look and let me know what you think. :)


	3. What Was Left After That, Too

**A/N:** Don't worry, I didn't drop one chapter on you and then forget! I'm in the process of moving, so things are a little crazy here. But today, after realizing that I am probably going to have my own episode of Hoarders one day, I needed to take a break and knew that this story would be the perfect distraction from reality. I love writing this family, and I hope that you enjoy getting back into the groove of things with them as much as I do. Enjoy, and let me know what you think!

* * *

_"Happiness hit her like a bullet in the back_  
_ Struck from a great height by someone _  
_Who should know better than that_

_ The dog days are over_  
_ The dog days are done_  
_ Can you hear the horses?_  
_ 'Cause here they come..."_

_- Dog Days are Over, Florence + The Machine_

* * *

Brennan propped her head up on her hand, leaning her elbow into the pillow and looking down at the mattress. The blankets were stripped away and Christine was sleeping soundly next to her. Despite years of anthropological study and research, and the knowledge that women and their babies had been co-sleeping for millions of years, Brennan still could not shake the irrational fear that she would accidentally smother her child in her sleep. She mentally reprimanded herself for being so illogical, but also acknowledged that many more things than just the fear of suffocation were driving her insomnia.

The house was unusually quiet, or perhaps she had simply grown accustomed to the level of noise that one typically experienced here. She hadn't been to her Aunt Lydia's house since Christmas of last year, when they flew down for a long weekend to visit, but it never changed much. The bedspreads might turn over or the walls might get a fresh coat of paint, but the place was effectively timeless. Always the same aching feet loafing down the hall before dawn, the sound of the washing machine turning on, the smell of coffee and bacon from the kitchen. Lydia had told her once before that if she wasn't up before the sun and asleep after everyone else, the ship would run aground. _Who do you think keeps this place from sinkin', huh?_ Lydia had asked her once while shoveling hash browns onto a plate. _Those clean clothes don't just appear out of nowhere, you know._

Three years ago, when she first met her mother's estranged family, she never imagined what she would be in for. Three aunts, a grandmother, and more cousins than she could even count sometimes. Add in their children—who all affectionately referred to her as 'Aunt Tempe' without even being prompted—and there were so many new branches on her family tree that it made her head spin. And to her shock, they embraced her with a love and acceptance she could have never anticipated—she grinned inwardly when she remembered how, upon first meeting her, most of her family thought she had Asperger's syndrome and chalked up her socially awkward behavior to what her cousin Sarah Leigh referred to as _that brain thing that makes you act like an asshole._

In the exact moment that Brennan was thinking back on their first encounter, she saw the bedroom door creak open and Sarah Leigh's mass of tangled curly hair poke into the room, her tired face hidden somewhere beneath it. It was a phenomena that Sarah Leigh would refer to as her "ears burning", though even after three years Brennan had never been able to figure out exactly what it was about being in someone's thoughts that was supposed to make your ears burn. But periodically Sarah Leigh would call her on the weekends, and if Brennan ever mentioned that she had just been thinking about her southern family, Sarah Leigh would doubtlessly proclaim, _Well I guess my ears must'a been burnin'!_ Some things about her, Brennan decided, she would never fully understand.

"You slept any?" Sarah Leigh whispered, noting the sleeping baby. Brennan shook her head and leaned back into the pillows. Sarah Leigh crept slowly onto the bed like a cat, shifting her weight carefully so as not to wake Christine, until the three of them shared the small space. The room had originally belonged to Eleanor, Brennan's cousin's child, and now was Sarah Leigh's. She had given it up to Brennan and spent the night on the couch.

"Me either," Sarah Leigh admitted. Her appearance had changed little in three years. Still tall, tan, willowy, and always looking as if she had just rolled out of bed at a moment's notice. Maybe it was the unruly nature of her hair, or the fact that Brennan had only twice seen her wearing something other than cut-off jeans. She smiled, and Sarah Leigh quirked a brow at her.

"That wasn't meant to be funny," she said, and Brennan snorted and shook her head.

"I wasn't laughing at you," she said. "I was just thinking."

"About?" Sarah Leigh asked. Brennan shrugged.

"I don't know," she admitted. "Just thinking."

"That brain of yours never turns off, does it?" Sarah Leigh asked. Brennan twisted the space between her brows in a frown.

"Nobody's brain turns off," she said slowly. "If it did, they would die." Sarah Leigh rolled her eyes and leaned in, knocking her head gently against Brennan's.

"Whatever you say," she said. "Aunt Lydia has breakfast ready, if you wanna go eat something."

"Okay," Brennan said, the two women slowly getting up so as not to disturb the sleeping baby. Brennan took one of the monitors with her—an ancient bulky thing that had been used for virtually all of the family children who ever spent a night in Lydia's house—and she and Sarah Leigh emerged into the cramped living room/kitchen space. Though she had talked about building an addition for the past year or so—griping that since people seemed so content to freeload off of her, she might as well make room for them—Lydia's house was still as small as ever. The low ceilings, large quantity of furniture, and general busy energy of the house left one feeling claustrophobic at times, but it was always somewhere Brennan knew she could land safely. That was why, when she and her father devised her escape, they knew immediately where she would flee to. There was no place safer for her than Lydia's house, nowhere more carefully guarded than in the arms of her family. Sometimes it still struck her as abruptly as a slap in the face, the fact that these people were her family.

"Sarah Leigh told me you got in just before I woke up," Lydia said, pushing bacon around the frying pan without looking up. "I was expectin' you to sleep longer."

"I don't really do a whole lot of that anymore," Brennan admitted as her Aunt Lydia came around the edge of the kitchen counter separating them and swept her into a warm hug. She smelled like coffee and strawberry shampoo, and it made Brennan simultaneously hungry and sad. Back in D.C., Booth was probably drinking coffee right around this time. This would be when they would read the paper aloud to Christine and each other, sometimes listen to the radio, sometimes just stare at each other, as if in awe that this was their real life. She felt a sudden pain in her chest as if she couldn't breathe. She took several steadying breaths, but they felt as if they passed straight through her lungs and escaped through cracks in her body.

"Well, who could blame ya?" Lydia said, sitting Brennan and Sarah Leigh down at the cramped table in the corner of the dinette area. "You know, I sure wish people would stop tryin'a kill off our family. What the hell'd we ever do to them anyway?"

"Mhmm," Sarah Leigh voiced indistinctly, shoveling bacon and eggs into her mouth as if she hadn't eaten in days. Brennan was constantly awed by the way the woman could eat and eat as if she were never full, but still maintain such a slight figure. She knew her own hips had widened appreciably after giving birth to Christine, but she'd never had a figure like Sarah Leigh's, even before pregnancy.

"What're you lookin' at?" Sarah Leigh asked through a full mouth of food, and Brennan shook her head and addressed her own plate.

"She's probably disgusted by the way you eat, like everyone else!" Lydia snapped. "And you ain't gonna fit into that wedding dress if you keep eatin' like that, by the way." Brennan nearly choked on the mouthful of fried eggs she was eating.

"I'm sorry, _wedding _dress?" she asked, and Sarah Leigh flushed.

"I'm _not _getting married," Sarah Leigh corrected forcefully.

"You're twenty eight years old, for God's sake!" Lydia practically yelled.

"I'm thirty six and have a child, and I'm not married," Brennan pointed out.

"Thank you!" Sarah Leigh said, cheeks burning.

"Well, you ain't livin' in my guest room either, so I don't care what you do with your life," she huffed. "Besides, she's been with Larry for almost _four years_ now."

"Booth and I were practically together for six years before we consummated our relationship," Brennan said, looking at the two of them over her coffee cup as she sipped it.

"Again, thank you!" Sarah Leigh said. "Look, when we're ready, maybe we'll get married. What's so wrong about just being with someone for a while anyway?"

"I think it's very responsible of you to prolong your courtship for as long as possible, to ensure that you can withstand the pressures of a long-term relationship," Brennan said. "The divorce rate is nearly fifty percent, and research shows that the longer two people are together prior to their engagement, the greater the likelihood of a successful marriage."

"You're my favorite cousin, you know that?" Sarah Leigh said, pointing at Brennan with her fork. "Aunt Lydia and everyone else out here won't get out of my ass about tying the knot with Larry."

"We just want you to be happy," Lydia said with an air of impatience.

"Bullshit, you want me out of your house!" Sarah Leigh said.

"Well, that too," Lydia admitted, causing Brennan to snort audibly. "But I also wanna just know why you two don't get hitched already! Larry's almost 30, you're getting' up there—"

"I'm sorry, I'm WHAT?"

"—and you two ain't gettin' any younger! I just wonder, if you're really happy with him, why you don't just do it already. What's stoppin' you?"

"Nothing is stopping me!" Sarah Leigh said forcefully, picking her plate up from the table. "I just don't want to get married right now, okay? Why do we always end up having this same damn conversation every time I sit down anywhere? I'm going outside." With that she stormed off, carrying her plate with her and slamming the screen door with a bang like a gunshot that made Brennan jump in her skin. Lydia groaned and sat down in Sarah Leigh's empty seat, taking a long swig from her coffee.

"She gets so bothered any time anyone brings it up with her," Lydia observed with a tone of longsuffering. "I just don't get her."

"I understand her completely," Brennan said, feeling almost annoyed on Sarah Leigh's behalf. "There's no reason for her to marry if she doesn't see any particular benefits in the arrangement, as versus what she has now."

"Look, you live with Seeley, don't you?" Lydia asked. Brennan nodded. "And y'all are raisin' that baby together?" Brennan nodded again. "And y'all have jobs and a house and a regular every-day life together, right?"

"Yes," Brennan said, "For all intents and purposes, we behave as a married couple, but we've never been legally married."

"Well, that's fine," Lydia said. "But Sarah Leigh is just stickin' her heels in the dirt and won't budge. Larry's a great guy, and he's been asking her to move in for over a year now, but she just won't. I think she's too comfortable, she doesn't wanna leave that little room at the end of my damn hallway," Lydia said, pointing her spoon forcefully in the direction of the room where Christine currently slept.

"She's been living with me for 13 years now, and I think she's afraid of change," Lydia said, with a sudden softness in her tone that was almost disarming to Brennan. "I know she is. And I understand, you know? Poor thing's been through a lot of changes—when my husband died, when she moved in with me, when her cousins got killed, everything that happened that summer when we met you… I know she's just happy that finally, for once, things don't seem like they're spinnin' around like crazy. I get that. But I'm afraid she's hangin' onto things too much, trying to keep them the same for the wrong reasons."

"Have you expressed that to her?" Brennan asked. Lydia shook her head.

"Nah," she said. "You know me and her, we don't exactly have those come-to-Jesus talks. She's hard to talk to."

"Hmmm," was all Brennan said in response, finishing off the last of her coffee just as Christine began crying in the back room. "Excuse me," she said, rising from her seat and padding down the hall. The crying ceased before she reached the room, however, and when she opened the door she saw her cousin Molly's daughter, Eleanor, rocking Christine on her hip. Eleanor was nine now, tall and lanky like Sarah Leigh, dirty blonde hair falling into her large blue eyes. There was still a smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose, though, and when she smiled up at her, Brennan still saw the same little girl who brought her a glass of water three years ago when she threw up on the front porch.

"She likes me," Eleanor said, and Brennan smiled and nodded.

"She certainly seems to," she said as Eleanor handed the baby over. "Thank you."

"How long are y'all staying for?" Eleanor asked, and Brennan bit her bottom lip for a moment. Clearly the child did not know the real reason why she had appeared in the middle of the night.

"A while," she said vaguely. Eleanor nodded without questioning the ambiguous response and bounded down the hallway, almost certainly looking for Maya. Brennan never questioned why anyone was in Lydia's house; the family came in and out so frequently, it was as if everyone lived here at least part-time. The door banged, and Brennan heard several familiar voices suddenly flood the kitchen.

"Let's go," she said with a sigh—the kind that comes both from exhaustion and love—as she looked down at Christine's oblivious smile. "You've got lots of new aunts and uncles to meet."


	4. The Death in the Family

I wanted to write this story. I wanted to write this story all the way through. I had a plan, a vision, and I knew exactly where I was going to go with it and what I wanted to do with the characters. I had a broad overarching theme, and several minor arcs for Brennan, Sarah Leigh, and the others. I had a plan.

And then my sister died.

My beautiful, perfect little sister, who I have mentioned here and there in various author's notes over the past several years, died. She was 19 years old. It was a freak accident that nobody could have seen coming, and now she is gone forever. I am completely broken.

I cannot write this story anymore, because when I wrote Eleanor, I was writing my little sister. I modeled Eleanor almost exactly after her, right down to the dirty blonde hair and bright blue eyes. All of Eleanor's sweetness, her kind heart, her precocity, her thoughtful, introspective nature, and her ability to reach out and love others deeply... that was all my sister. Every single beautiful thing about Ellie, was really about my sister. And now she's gone.

Without her, I cannot write this story anymore. Because I am Sarah Leigh, truly I am. Anyone who knows me will tell you, I put myself into my own story in the form of Sarah Leigh. In fact, when my friend Liz first read this story, she said to me, "Way to write yourself into your own fic!" And now that my little sister is dead, I cannot write this story anymore. I cannot write Eleanor anymore. I cannot write this family, because they are based in so many ways on my own family, and my family is breaking and breaking and breaking right now. And we will be, forever.

Maybe one day I will come back to this family in these pages, because I do love them, so much. I love them because I love my own family, and they are so heavily modeled after my own family. Each character is not a member of my family, only Sarah Leigh and Eleanor are rooted almost entirely in real people, but the rest of the family, the whole colorful, crazy, rich tapestry of love and togetherness that this family is... that is mine. They are mine. And we are so, so lost and so, so shattered right now. We will never be the same. I can never write this family the same way again, because my own family will never be the same way again.

My real-life family is struggling, but we will make it. We have been on the receiving end of an unbelievable amount of southern hospitality. My aunt's kitchen is packed to the gills with food brought to us by friends, coworkers, neighbors, church organizations, even complete strangers from down the road who heard about what happened to my sister. People have been pouring in and out of the house for the past few days, and they will keep coming and going for many more. Even my sister's kindergarten teacher came to give her condolences... and an armful of baked goods. Southerners do comfort food better than anybody in the world, let me tell you.

I have no idea how to live in this world without my baby sister. But I will learn how. I have no other choice. I miss her more than I ever thought it could be possible to miss another human being. I love her more than almost anyone. Love, not loved. Present tense. I still love her. Death cannot take her away from me, no matter how hard it tries. I will not let her go.

Thank you for all of your support in the past for _The Family in the Tree,_ _Southern Hospitality,_ and on this fic. Thank you for reading, reviewing, favoriting, and messaging me. Thank you for enjoying these characters and these stories as much as I have. And thank you for your understanding now.

Hold your family and friends close. Tell them you love them while they are still alive to hear it. Love your family so much it looks stupid. Be lame and hang out with your little sister instead of going to a party. I promise you will never, ever regret that.

Best,

K.E.


End file.
